Divergent - Eric

Free As A Bird

As I wake up I can feel the bruise on my cheek, he must have hit me pretty hard. I have a quick shower and put on a black singlet top with a sheer blue blouse over it and some boring blue skinny pants, the usual. I keep my hair down but put a hair tie around my wrist I case I dicide to tie it up later. I walk out of my room fearful of my father seeing the bruise on my cheek and actually for once remembering what happened the previous night. I walk down the stairs to see my father cooking oats and has the honey on the table. 'Hey honey how are you feeling this morning? It's choosing day today' he says slightly cheerful but you can here some discomfort in his voice. I don't say anything and then he turns around and see's my face. 'Wha- what happened?' He asks looking like he was going to cry. I still manage to say nothing as he walks over and puts his hand on my cheek 'did, did I do this to you?' He asks a tear slipping down his face. 'Yes' is all I manage to say as I walk out the door.

The walk to the hub was long. Not saying that the distance was far but seeing my father cry made me reconsider my hasty decision of leaving my faction. They have this quote 'faction before blood' the test was supposed to help me choose but it only made me more confused. Erudite or dauntless? My dad or my freedom? Why am I being made to determine the rest of my life in the matter of just under 24 hours? I mean we should be given a week at least this is a huge decision and I don't know if I'm going to make the right one. Shit! I should have peed before I left the house, damn biggest regret of the day!

As I arrived at the hub my father was already there because he drove in his car. He looks sad now that makes me feel really bad! We take the elevator which was packed with a bit of every faction apart from abnegation and dauntless. As we reach the top we file in to our factions spots and before I knew it the ceremony had began. It was abnegations turn to host it and a man called Marcus, who has a reputation or so I've heard for beating his child... Tobias? I think started by saying the same thing that is said every year so I kinda just zoned out. As each 16 year old was being called up my heart was beating a little faster just thinking I was one person closer to making a huge decision. I think I am going to go into cardiac arrest when my name gets called out 'Spencer Shai' I walk down the stairs trying to not trip but if you knew me than you'd know I was clumsy when a lot of people were watching. I could feel everyone's eyes pierce into the back of my head as I took the knife from Marcus' hand and stared at the two bowls. Water or hot coals? That is the question. I cut open my hand, my blood coming out faster than expected because of the rate my heart is beating. I hold my hand above the erudite bowl but just before the blood dripped from my hand I moved it to the coals. I heard the sizzle of my blood apon the coals and already felt more free. I take one last look at my father not expecting him to want to come to visiting day in two weeks and that was a huge mistake. He looked like he had his heart torn out of his chest and someone had stabbed it a million times and put it back in his chest. But then he looked in my eyes and smiled? What? He mouthed the words 'I still love you' and then my heart felt slightly less like it was black and dead.

I made my way over to the cheering crowed of dauntless and felt more at home than I ever had. I waited for the ceremony to be over which didn't take to long as I was closer to the end. As it ended all the dauntless ran down the sets of stairs and it felt good. It felt good to have the wind in my hair and my heart racing not because of fear but because I'm free. When we got to the bottom I saw people climbing the poles to where the train goes past. Yes! I know what's about to happen. As we reach the top the train approaches us and we can see all the dauntless born jumping on first than the transfers following. I gracefully grabbed hold of the moving train and pulled myself up, if I had to admit it was fairly easy and probably looked like I had been doing it my whole life.

As we sat on the train I was sitting next to a former Candor 'well that was interesting, what do you think is next?' She asks me 'oh and I'm Christina by the way' she adds with a smile ' I'm spencer and by the looks of things were jumping off' I say not really surprised, I mean this is dauntless after all. She looks at me in shock as I get up and offer her a hand, she takes it and we walk to the other side of the train. I tell her on the count of three we jump, she nodded her head and then '1,2....3' and we jumped. For a moment it felt like I was flying, like I was a bird, free and able to go wherever I wanted but then realised that I had to land and should try to do it gracefully so I prepared for landing and landed on my feet but then lost balance and fell on my butt. So much for graceful. I looked over to Christina to see she had landed on her elbow and knees, ouch! I offer her my hand for a second time today and she takes it and we walk over to where everyone was starting to crowd. I saw an older man and a younger one, who may I add was pretty damn sexy. 'Initiates you have chosen dauntless for your faction and now it's time for us to pick you' the older man shouts so everyone can hear, after a short pause he continues his what sounds like a well prepared speech said several times through the past years 'our factions quarters is down underneath us, so you guys have to jump down off this building as a part of your initiation. Do I have anyone willing to go first' everyone just stands there trying to function what we were just told to do. It doesn't look like anyone is going to volunteer anytime soon so I just walked forward. Everyone looks shocked as I stand up to the edge and look down. I take in a deep breath as heights is one of my fears but what better way to face my fear than to do it on the first day of my new life. Just as I was about to jump the younger guy interrupts me 'we'll, maybe a bit quicker we don't have all day' and with that I jump off the building and for the second time today I feeling like I am flying... We'll that is until I realised that I don't know what is at the bottom and slightly start to panic. As I hit a net at the bottom I let out a slight squeak and breath out the air I didn't know I was holding on to, I laugh slightly and open my eyes to see a hand held out offering me help, I take it and role off the net to see a lot of people standing there. They had all just finished cheering at me when the man who helped me stated talking to me 'what's your name?' 'Sp- uh um' 'what? Is it hard to pronounce?' He asks me slightly amused. What is it with hot guys in this faction? 'And choose wisely you only get to choose once' he says to me 'spence' I say which is basically just my name without the 'r'. The girl standing next to the guy looks at him and says 'make the announcement four' his name is four? Like the number? Ok no judgement here 'FIRST JUMPER... SPENCE' everyone cheers as four whispers in my ear 'welcome to dauntless' and I go stand next to some random person slightly smiling and then that person turns next to me and says 'ya no being the first jumper is kind of a big thing around here' and with that my slight smile turns in to a ridiculously large one.

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Ok guys thanks for reading this chapter!:)

It means a lot to me that you read it and I don't even know if anyone even reads these but I just want to say I hope your liking my story and Eric will be in the next chapter a bit more:) it will get more into the story soon I just needed to get the whole picking a faction thing done first:)

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